What exactly does this guy bring to the table for Tesla? Money? Connections?
This goes completely against the intent of the SEC agreement and I would not expect this to be the end of it.
Obviously his prior experience where he "repeatedly fell short of the conduct to be expected of as a chief executive and chairman" [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Murdoch#Phone_hacking_sc...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Murdoch#Phone_hacking_sc...
If I were a shareholder, I'd be screaming out to keep hold of Elon rather than Mr Murdoch.
In short:
> On 7 July 2011, James Murdoch announced the closure of the British tabloid newspaper the News of the World in the wake of a phone hacking scandal.[23]
Although everyone has the right to make mistakes, this was the man who closed a 168yr old newspaper based on illegal activities that seemed rife in the company.
[23] https://www.theguardian.com/media/blog/2011/jul/07/news-of-t...
Based on what Mr Musk has already gone through, I don't think Mr Murdoch is what Tesla needs.
As an example, here is the board of directors for General Motors:
https://www.gm.com/our-company/leadership/board-of-directors...
Not exactly a lot of car building experience.
- Former GM officials,
- Ex-managers of defense companies. They build machines too, right.
- Ex-joint chiefs of staff and business school head. They know management.
- Insurance and such. GM has a large workforce and managing that a good portion of activity.
Newscorp is a large organization too, but it seems more different from Tesla than the US Army, Cummins or even an insurance company is different than GM. So on it's face, it seems like the board knows something about manufacturing and managing large organizations. With Jame Murdock, it seems likes you could say "know something about spin", which might not be comforting.
The Murdochs are scum, but hey, if you're a world leader and Rupert Murdoch calls, you pick up the phone. Tony Blair only became PM because he sucked up to Murdoch to gain his papers' endorsement.
- Current CEO of GM
- Former Lockheed-associated Director was VP in charge of Information Systems. Assuming that's deliverable product and not internal IT (which she also ran), not exactly making the planes
- The former CEO of a drug manufacturer
- The former CEO of Harvard Management Company (the endowment)
- Retired Chairman of Joint Chiefs
- Retired CEO of a big oil company
- The Chairman of HP
- Former CFO of Wal-Mart
- Former CEO of Cummins (MOST adjacent business to GM vis engine mfg)
- Former Dean of Ivey Business School, The University of Western Ontario
- The CEO of eBay
So, sure, we can reach and say that some of the individuals have tangential industry experience or we can say that they are on the board because they have high degrees of personal/economic success, presumably large rolodexes, and various levels of experience at the top of large organizations.
I'm not taking a position on James Murdoch at all here, just pointing out that board members are not often subject matter experts of what a company produces so much as generally successful and influential people with various levels of business and leadership experience.
Did Elon have either before founding Tesla?
I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. The other option that this is a popularity contest and the position is mostly for forward facing purposes.
I'm going to guess that Elon will continue to micromanage from the sidelines but if this is a coup it definitely sets the stage for some drama.
I don't have horses in this race.
Already an insider within the company. You think anyone actually wants to deal with Musk?